There Goes the NeighborhoodLos Angeles is having an identity crisis. City officials tout new development and shiny commuter trains, while longtime residents are doing all they can to hang on to home. The series is supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Excerpt from 'Lowly'

Lowly

Ugly Duckling Presse

Two martyrs stalked the earth almsgiving equally so neither knew the other was capable of competition until the first martyr sacrificed his life before the township by jumping into a fire pit. Some said the second martyr inspired by his friend's decision faced the pit and lit himself on fire. After the first martyr saw this act he was immediately resurrected only to end his life once more by lighting his body on fire then jumping from the tower. The town gasped as suddenly the second martyr reappeared afire and shaking the tower until its shattered stones covered him. This cycle of sacrifice went on so long the two turned into an attraction for travelers. Soon they were no longer considered martyrs but brothers whose punishment for misusing fire was to continue misusing it.

HOLLY

We sat by the river till night. What is night

we asked. The time we leave the river. Like

the weir made out of brush and boards, we caught the fish. And

brought its body home in frosted plastic bags. How's

it structured, we wondered as we reached inside for bones and

when we found the wishing one that laughs when cracked, only

then we asked for day, which we knew is where the river was.

ARGO

A hull made to touch the arctic shoulder of the vacant sea. And she is a ship who speaks words learnt from water. The half of her you can see is the present tense. Her wake is words. Above, the gods have confidence in what she says. Years are the stars' sentence, aimed at your sail — their incomplete sentence, your half-made life. 26 stars line the ship, each star lifts its own weight like the letter i. A little timber holds you up too, speaks when you're not listening. At times your timber is light, the stern illuminated. Other times, the overlong circle of the sea points with its mist upward, a rain nestling in the eye of passing night, to an unchanging station that blinks like a house at your terror. It was a good deed, your birth, and a reward is coming. Not today, not tomorrow, soon. The laughing winter, your hair expires, a film distorts warm faces you know you'll soon forget.

Even water will forget your skin. The sun warts your ears' tips, your lips too chapped to pray. You who harbored a bull of guilt. The bull will be appalled to learn your sentence spoken by milk in the heavens. Rewards of human life are wind without a coat, limbs torn apart by neighbors, and sometimes you're the thief. The body in the well or resting at the foot of an oak tree. The half you cannot see or hear was stolen. You arrived on a ship, only one exists. She spoke to you, to your grandparents, but it was cold for everyone and so they slept.

THE PROBLEM WITH RHYME

The problem of rhyme is not what grandmother spoke about when she talked in her German accent. What she meant, the problem of Rhine, sounded more like rime frosting the banks. Perhaps the problem of Rhine had more to do with rime than rhyme. I asked if she confused the words I used with other words she knew. This lapse expanded with each utterance the time it takes for what one means to make pure sense to the other. "My mother grew this stutter," she sighed, "I could not understand it was words until she died. The problem with Rhine is no river here stays worthy of drowning. When the righteous leave a place, the place is diminished, and a woman is finished who does not know it is her time to swim. When everywhere is winter, there is no time to consider freezing, only the harm in not staying warm."